Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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I want all my edits reverted.

I know this will be completely ignored especially considering corporations who don’t care at all about user’s privacy like Google but I will say this anyway. I want all the edits I have made reverted. I want everything I have added onto Wikipedia removed.

I believe it is my right to privacy and just as people are allowed to add content to Wikipedia they should also be allowed to remove content they have added. 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever you edited Wikipedia in the past, you were informed in writing with each individual edit that you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. That was a legally binding agreement that you accepted with each edit. Accordingly, you have no such right and no basis for making this request. Cullen328 (talk) 22:18, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes. The good old terms and services trick. Well, I am not surprised. Well then, you continue editing Wikipedia if it makes you feel good but as for me well I am getting out of what I consider a digital rubbish can set on fire. With that being said safe travels fellow internet surfers. This is me finally signing off from this site once and for all! 92.9.187.249 (talk) 22:36, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a "trick". It is a legal agreement that you voluntarily entered into every time you made an edit, and it is essential to the success of the #7 website on earth, with page views exceeding ten billion per month. I hope that you find a hobby that will be more satisfying to you. Cullen328 (talk) 23:28, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not to minimize the licensing issue, but there's also a practical side to this. Let's say you created an article some time ago and over the ensuing years, multiple people continued to edit it. A good example from my own editing might be The Lincoln Project. I created it four years ago but at this point only 7% of the text is mine. Even assuming we wanted to revert everything I wrote, how could we possibly unravel that and leave anything coherent? RoySmith (talk) 23:35, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This being an IP address, we have no way of knowing who was editing from it when past edits were made. For all we know, the person making this request only just gained access to this IP address today, and is actually asking us to remove someone else's work. BD2412 T 01:09, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the IP regrets not the edits, but the fact of not logging in (and thus exposing the IP address). I clicked through a handful of edits, and they seem to be quite ordinary, with no obvious privacy implications (e.g., punctuation fix). If hiding the IP address is what's actually wanted here, then it is conceivably possible that this could be accomplished somehow (e.g., Wikipedia:Revision deletion) without actually removing the content itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that the IP was upset because of this filter action; OhNoitsJamie almost immediately implemented the IP's changes, but perhaps the IP did not notice this? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 04:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, revdelling 360 edits on someone's sayso is absurd. We shouldn't allow people to hide from the consequences of their actions like that. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:02, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is an interesting problem in that the inability to apply the 'right to disappear' might be a problem for EU editors. Reverting 360 edits is trivial compared to some 'right to disappear' actions needed; for instance, a person participating in a Clinical Trial asking that all information about them be removed from all databases - completely non-trivial, and completely doable via approved procedures at pharma companies. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Projects have always embraced the right to remember, for both technical and social reasons. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:15, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also believe that you agreed to this. If you want everything reverted, why did you add it in the first place? I am agreeing to the following terms by sending this message:

By clicking "Reply", you agree to our Terms of Use and agree to irrevocably release your text under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Which means that once it is put, you can't take it back, the word irrevocably in the legal terms is what is stopping you. Also, you have an IP address instead of an account, which means that again, you may be removing hundreds of people's work, and they might actually want that. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Even when people agree to something, they sometimes come to regret it later. That's okay. They're stuck with (most of) it in this case, but it's okay for them to be sorry about their past decisions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. If "irrevocably" wasn't in the legally binding contract, I would be on their side. However, it is, and so once you have added it it is too late to remove. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:40, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And while if a company has your personal information they must delete it at your request, you gave the Wikimedia Foundation no personal information, and instead research, or fixed typos. To follow up, it is ridiculously hard to undo your edits if someone already edited over your edits. Hellow Hellow i am here 16:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, this IP address has created several articles, which would be deleted (the creation of an article is an edit) which means that every created article by this IP address would be deleted, which is something us Wikipedians won't accept. Hellow Hellow i am here 17:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The OP's request as originally worded violates Wikipedia's Terms of Use and would be pragmatically impossible to implement in general for reasons others have pointed out. But it is interesting to explore how far their request could accomplished, especially in light of the GDPR. There's a page at Mediawiki:GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and MediaWiki software that discusses some of the issues related to deleting a user's contributions and their IP addresses. A hyper-liberal interpretation of the GDPR and what private data means would make using Wikipedia impossible. For example, the OP's interpretation where all content they've added somehow involves their privacy is absurd: a typo fix in an article, for example, does not have anything to do with privacy and is not private data. WhatamIdoing's suggestion that their IP address be hidden in histories, etc., is reasonable and doable. But this redaction cannot reasonably for practical purposes extend to mere mentions of your IP address everywhere, for example, in comments by others. And the comments that we don't know if the same person made all the IP edits is a good one. Imagine if a handful of our most active editors decided to do what the OP wants, it would eviscerate Wikipedia. I am not versed in EU law but would surely hope the nature of collaborative websites are factored in to how the GDPR is interpreted by the courts and some technical common sense would prevail. Plus, I don't see how a GDPR right to disappear would overrule the legal agreement you made every time you made an edit. Without further clarification, we don't know what the OP wanted or why but it is an interesting topic to see how a "right to disappear" could actually be implemented and to what extent. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Surprising that no one has suggested starting by removing this one. —Tamfang (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relaunch of the Community Safety Survey

Hello there!

This month, the Wikimedia Foundation will be relaunching the Community Safety survey on your wiki. This survey occurred in 2021 and 2022 to monitor safety sentiments on large Wikipedias. The survey used the QuickSurveys extension. Users were asked one question: “In the past 30 days, have you felt unsafe or uncomfortable contributing to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)?”

This year, we will be adding a second question to the survey. For those who answer “Yes” to having felt unsafe or uncomfortable, they will be asked to select or write in some reasons they have felt unsafe. Users may permanently dismiss the survey, otherwise, the survey will show up once each quarter to a random sample of logged in editors.

The goal is to use this anonymous survey to monitor users’ perception of safety as they contribute to Wikimedia projects. Data will be published on the Community Safety reports page for administrators and interested community members to review and support their own work. This project is led by the Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety team, with research support from the Research and Trust and Safety Product teams.

For questions and comments, feel welcome to reach out to us on the Community Safety Talk Page.

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

great, long overdue! Nayyn (talk) 19:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration committee 2024 election: nominations to start on November 3

The nomination period for the 2024 arbitration committee election will start on November 3. If there is someone you'd like to see run, or if you want to know someone else's plans before making your own decision, I encourage you to talk to them now, well in advance of the election. For more information about the work involved with serving on the committee, see the arbitrator experiences page. isaacl (talk) 01:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Style sheets & printing

In Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, I know the following statement is outdated, but I don't know what should replace it. If someone does, please edit accordingly and indicate here that you have taken care of it. "Browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, that recognize the media print will automatically apply the printable version when printing with the default Monobook stylesheet." Jmabel | Talk 17:58, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jmabel, maybe move this to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to move it where you will; I don't particularly see rewriting documentation as a technical issue, but if you do please feel free to pursue this as you wish. - Jmabel | Talk 02:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone and removed that section. I don't think it's needed anymore. All modern browsers now show the printable version when you print the page, without having to us the "printable version" link --Chris 07:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Global Ban Request Notification

In accordance to the global bans policy, this message is to notify the English Wikipedia community that a global ban request has been instigated against User:Won1017, a user indefinitely blocked in your project. Takipoint123 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked account: some links do show the original user page, some don't

Please see the details at the upper part of Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box

So it looks like the wiki software does consider and would treat this name as a non-existent and thus legitimate possible name of/for an account.

I do see two problems:

If now some one else/new would create a (second) account with this name, provided the wiki software would allow it, there would exist, via certain links, an old version with the same name.
In the history of all pages which were created or edited by this original account the original name of this account is existent, therefore this name must not be allowed a second time as an account name.

So, as I see this, something should be changed, probaly only on the technical ( not the rule ) side.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 10:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that just a misspelling? The username that created the page ends in "ffee" while the talk page comments are missing that last 'e'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:47, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've wondered about this before. We have a bot that can change existing links, though not those in older revisions. You might get more reliable information at Wikipedia talk:Changing username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought: Xaosflux, do you know the answer to Steue's question about people changing usernames, and then a future editor innocently creating an account under the same name? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing in general, antispoof should prevent someone from creating another account with the same name as one that was renamed. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:44, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I remember, on advice from another admin, creating a doppelganger account on my old user name to prevent usurpation. My account was renamed in July 2008 (at least, that is when my user page was moved), but the current account with my old name was created in November 2009. That was a while ago. Donald Albury 18:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That used to be common advice, before antispoof. It is still useful to at least have a redirect from pages in old signatures/lists to current pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ActivelyDisinterested, you are right: mis-spelling; getting old.
I corrected it on Talk:Yandex Search #Classification box.
Steue (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Check the notablity of this article and after approval then delete the speedy delete template

Hello dear Wikipedians. This article (Najmeddin Shariati) was created once before in an unprincipled manner and without citing reliable references. For this reason, it was deleted under the title of not notablity and fame with the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. But this time I created it with basic editing and citing more than 20 reliable references from official Iranian news agencies (Because this person is Iranian) that independently covered the news of this person. Please review this article and its references and after approval, delete the speedy deletion template. This person's article is available in Persian Wikipedia, and its notablity and fame was confirmed by the administrators and editors of Persian Wikipedia according to the reliable sources mentioned in it. If you think this is a stub article. Add the stub template to it and let it stay. The final decision is yours. very thanks 4ipid (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be about Draft:Najmeddin Shariati.

SafariScribe, you declined this for lack of reliable sources. There are 21 refs in the article. Every paragraph has at least one Wikipedia:Inline citation. WP:AFCSTANDARDS #6 says "Avoid declining an article because the reliable sources are not free, online or in English", so I hope that the use of WP:NONENG sources was not a factor in your decision (I have seen less experienced AFC folks make that mistake). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing, I have changed the declining rationale as I perceived it's more reasonable. Although the sources may appear reliable, but it's not everything published by them is considered reliable e.g WP:INTERVIEWS, which are mostly flowing through the cited sources. I am also seeing meaning with the recent deletion discussion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Najmeddin Shariati. Cheers! Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 04:10, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SafariScribe, Have you considered the value of a custom reason in these cases? The draft now has two identical messages at the top, neither of which says anything about interviews. (Interviews are usually reliable; the point of WP:Interviews is that when the subject is being interviewed about himself, his answers – but not the introduction, questions, or other content that came out of someone else's mouth – isn't independent. If you are interested in this subject, then feel free to join the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Can we please settle on some guidance for interviews?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding copyright, spoiler, summary

In Japan, police in Miyagi prefecture recently arrested members of a company which post spoiler of copyrighted shows onto the company's website, and try to earn ad revenue.

Copyright holders and interest groups claim they permissionlessly transcribed character names, dialogue, actions, scenes, and plot which reveal the whole view of the story to an extent beyond quotation and is obvious copyright violation, damaging rhe right of copyright holders as it will lower the desore of people paying proper price for the content and lead to people not actually watching the movie itself.

Given that while Wikipedia is a nonprofit site, and sunmaries of fictional works on Wikipedia usually wouldn't include direct quotation of dialogue of characters inside performance, many such articles still include very extensive summary on full plots of the fictional works they are describing, and all content published on Wikipedia unless otherwise specific should be reusable for profit, is there any risks that summary section of articles currently included in Wikipedia could be deemed copyright violation? C933103 (talk) 12:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The law is quite clear in making a distinction between plot summaries (even including spoilers) and the like, and actual copyright violations such as extensive transcriptions of dialogue. We are at no risk. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@C933103, I would prefer that articles included "full plots of the fictional works" but not "very extensive summaries". When I run across them, I try to take a minute or two to remove overly detailed content.

That said, what I really dislike, and what might actually be a copyvio problem, is a "plot summary" that is just a word-for-word copy of the publisher's marketing blurb. They're unlikely to complain (free advertising!), but it's IMO a disservice to the reader, and would be IMO undesirable even if the publisher had formally dedicated that text to the public domain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on the first point, often a more concise plot summary that succintly outlines the work's story is a lot more useful than something that is painful to read since it's weighed down with details only superfans are interested in.

Also note that WP:VGPLOT, WP:FILMPLOT, and WP:NOVELPLOT all state that plot sections should be no greater than 700 words unless there is reason otherwise. novov talk edits 09:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I would like to believe that the law is clear enough, but screenshot provided by relevant party (which is censored so text cannot be read) seems to indicate the website they arrest the operator this time do not actually publish dialogues of the original work line by line, instead look like a prose style description of the original work. So I am not sure about the degree of violation on that website that lead to the conclusion of that website is considered a transcription of original work and thus copyvio. C933103 (talk) 01:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In most countries, ordinary copyright violations are a matter of civil law (i.e., not criminal), so the police aren't involved and nobody gets arrested. However, it is sometimes more complicated than that; for example, if someone breaks into a computer system to copy the author's original files (=a crime) and then posts them on the internet in violation of copyright law (=a civil tort), then the police could arrest the person for breaking into the computer system, but not for the copyright violation. Also, a creative lawyer could suggest others: perhaps the circumstances suggest fraud, or perhaps it's computer piracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Japan made copyright violation a criminal offense since year 2018 after the signing of TTP (Now known as CP-TTP) trade pact, according to my understanding. C933103 (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry

Moved to Talk:John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry § Oscar Wilde card

— Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 22:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]